Best light for Cheato?

[felixfish]

I have recently redone my sump with a refugium. 6" DSB, 2 LR's and 2 clumps of cheato. I have a 2700K CFL spiral over the top. I have read up that 5100K is the best? Would if I ran one of the lights above, and another on the side of the tank?

 

[Bluesaltwater87]

with any plant or coral i have learned that they will do better with any light 5100k and up. for chato i use one 5.1k bulb and it works for me

 

[kbuser92]

Find a 5500-6500 bulb at Petco/PetSmart. Theyre like $7 each and you just need 1. What you have is fine, though. Itll live and grow, just not thrive.

 

[felixfish]

I've done a bit of poking around and found out what I'm going to experiment with.
Here is a small experience that led me to my decision.
Here is the light I purchased.

 

[kbuser92]

Should work fine.

 

[felixfish]

Here is the light I bought for the refugium


And here it is in the sump. It has a much more blueish hue to it. We'll see how the cheato grows over the next two weeks.

 

[Bifferwine]

That should be fine. I've always just used regular CFL (squiggly) bulbs from the hardware store over my fuge. My chaeto grew great.